More little things that mean a lot

The mud bowl out the back. One day this will be a basketball ring area.

My beautiful 320 litre hot water service!! We have this pump thing that continually circulates the hot water through the pipes so that when you turn on a tap, the hot water is there straight away. It uses a tiny bit of electricity but it saves litres of water that is wasted while you wait for the hot to come. Great when you're on tank water.

Our front garden area.

My new vegie patches. I have planted broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, brown onions, red cabbage, cos lettuce and italian parsely. I hope they do well. The top picture bed doesn't get as much full sun and the one below so it will be interesting to see if they differ.

I'm not an expert gardener at all but I love the idea of home grown stuff. I also really want to get some chookens!!

Latest jobs done

Darren has been busy doing lots of "little" things around the place while we wait for the kitchen and stair materials. Above are the lovely handrails upstairs.

This is my dishwasher. I just had to put in a pic coz I love it so much! I've even found a phosphate free dishwasher powder so our worms are happy.

Darren had a vision for our outdoor entertaining area to have some interesting feature bits. He's going to render all this blue board and then paint it in a plummy colour. This little servery bit is in front of the kitchen sink. It will be for passing out stuff but also looks a bit like a bar area, I can imagine people sitting at stools here chatting to me while I'm inside.

Another view of the bar area.

This is where the BBQ will reside. Daz has built a little shelf to the left. The deck will eventually extend out to the left of this picture, over the ferns.

Update

No photos today, just an update. We finally have a bathroom operating. The gas was connected last Tuesday and then the hot water service. It was a big job running the gas line up to the house in all the rain. Lots of mud!! Still, we got hot water, Yay!!! Now the guest bathroom is tiled, shower head installed and we no longer have to travel to wash. It is very exciting!! We haven't had a bathtub in our house for the last 3 years so the kids are loving the bath. We have also installed our dishwasher. I was definately getting sick of handwashing. It's in the laundry at present, where we have set up a temporary kitchen. We'll move it when the kitchen comes.
The cabinets are ordered so could arrive next week. All I need now is my washing machine and dryer and a clothes line and we will be fully independant!

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Our living spaces!!

Thought I'd post a few photos to show how we are living at the moment. This is Tim's little hidey hole. This room is a little bunk room off the guest room.

Here is our study, actually set up in the study!! You can see all our toilets in boxes on the left. We've got the phone line in and the internet working. Essential for me!!!

This is our room, and Nicky's and Amber's!!! When we moved out, our friends pulled the carpet up at our old rental house. They gave us all the big pieces to put on our chipboard floors. It adds a touch of warmth and cleanliness.

All our worldly goods in the rumpus room. Jake has a little nook in the back corner (see the burgundy doona back left!!)

Our lounge. This is a "theatre" style room with 2 levels of seating. We are using our two red couches, one on each level. It looks a bit daggy but it works well!! We had our antenna installed and were surprised to get fabulous digital pictures. We had to get a more expensive antenna with a booster but we are really happy.

Moving in!!

Yes, finally we have moved in, although the house isn't quite finished! It's kind of like camping. We have no kitchen (see empty space above, but note lovely polished boards!!), no bathroom, no hot water, no stairs. But, we have made do and it is really quite livable.

One thing we DO have is a loo!! There's no door but an old quilt does the job.

This is our makeshift kitchen (in what will be the laundry). For the first few days we had no water inside at all. We had to go to a tap outside. That was a bit hard so we rushed out and bought a laundry sink which Darren has installed on a temporary frame.
We managed to get the tank filled and a water pump on so we have got running water. The gas line has to be brought onto the property from the other side of the road. This is happening next week and then we will be able to install a hot water service. Darren is busy tiling the bathroom downstairs so we will be able to have a functioning shower. At the moment we are travelling to friends to bathe and wash clothes. It is actually working out OK. The house is very spacious even without using the top floor. We have set all the kids up with a "space" and it is quite livable.
Darren did the floorboards himself to save money. He worked so hard with the hired machines but he wasn't happy with the smoothness, even after 2 coats of lacquer and hand sanding in between. He rang a professional just out of the Yellow Pages to get some advice. He turned out to be a great guy who felt sorry for Darren and came out on Saturday afternoon to run his buffer machine over the floor. It is very rare that a professional floor sander would do this especially for someone he didn't even know! The floor came up heaps better just by using a professional machine for 15 minutes!! He also gave Darren some tips on how to apply the lacquer (with a roller, not whatever Darren had used before). It was fantastic and the floor has come up beautifully! He did it all for $50!! What a blessing.

Floorboards

Just a few photos of our floorboards going down.